Tempo
by Firestar9mm
Summary: This story is a bit of me; I found it a few weeks ago and nursed it back to health, so now I'm setting it free. Feedback craved as always.


Tempo  
  
*****  
  
On a scale of one to ten, this sucked.  
  
She believed in cruel angels, all right-one had put her in this situation for a laugh.  
  
Anyone who could roll three octaves with their voice in one word was a good whiner. Shinji was a good whiner, and listening to him was a soothing activity akin to having one's teeth drilled.  
  
"Stop complaining!" Misato's voice cracked like a whip, the acoustics in the studio leaving hissing echoes.  
  
When the captain handed them each a sheet of paper, she stared down at it. Her eyes were transmitting the pictures to her brain, but it couldn't make sense out of them. She was withholding the horror from her poor mind.  
  
"You're going to memorize this by heart," Misato lectured, putting on a poor imitation of Ritsuko's guest-speaker expression. "Memorizing a routine set to music is the best way to achieve perfect harmony..."  
  
Kaji stuck his head through the door, grinning. "I chose the music and did the choreography, by the way."  
  
The whip cracked over Kaji. "I can do this by myself!" Misato insisted, and the two began to bicker.  
  
Loud as Misato's voice was, it gradually faded to a soft blah, blah, blah in Asuka's ears. She slid a glance over to Shinji, who was watching them, his face almost as impassive as the First Child's. And yet, Shinji's expression was worlds away from Ayanami's. While her face was as blank as a refrigerator door, revealing nothing, Shinji's was more like watching fish swim beneath rippling water. One could sense color but not shape. He stood with his eyelids at a comfortable half-mast, as if listening to some inner music only he could hear.  
  
He listened to that SDAT of his all the time, but this morning there was no way to conceal it on his person--how could he, Asuka reasoned, with those stupid leotards they were wearing?  
  
Her eyes swept him up and down, and as soon as she realized she wasn't thinking about the SDAT anymore, Kaji's voice snapped her back to reality.  
  
"Let's begin, okay?"  
  
She rummaged quickly through herself for a winning smile. A winning smile was worth diamonds. As the music started, she tried to keep on a winning smile.  
  
However, it was impossible to keep on a smile of any kind when she could feel him disturbing the space around them. He was just THERE, impossible to work with or move around or ignore. If Ayanami was like an icy wind, Shinji was like a solar flare. As she moved, a knife neatly slicing her way through the air, he unsettled his space, unsure, explosive.   
  
"Owww!"  
  
The beautiful harmony inside her was destroyed. There was pain thrilling up her side, and Shinji was sprawled ungracefully on the floor, face twisted.   
  
For a second something in her reached to help him up, but it was swiftly slain by the superior system--the Second Child took charge.  
  
"You IDIOT!..."  
  
*****  
  
She was a simmering saucepan at his side in the hall, a twitching muscle. Barely leashed fury crackled around her like electricity.  
  
He yawned.  
  
Her fury poured off her in almost visible waves, yet rolled off him like rain off a duck's feathers. He seemed strangely sheltered from the bottled storm at his side.  
  
"I'm beat. I can't believe we have to practice again after lunch. We just spent three hours in there and we've barely started. I-"  
  
The skies opened. "Don't bitch to ME, Third Child! It's only hard for YOU because you're a total klutz!"  
  
"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow at her, as if she'd done something interesting. "Is that it?"  
  
If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was to be found amusing when she was angry. "It would be perfect already if I was alone." She sniffed and turned her head, not wanting to look at him any more.  
  
"Oh, of course. IF you were alone." He took special pains with the word "if", exaggerated its pronunciation. "But you aren't, are you?"  
  
The rhetoric might have been what sparked the fire this time. She was on him, seizing the nearest portion of his anatomy that she could inflict pain on. He could probably pick up radio-free Europe with those ears.  
  
"Owww!" he protested, so that she had to yell to be heard.  
  
"I shouldn't have to slow down for YOU! YOU ought to catch up to me-how dare you drag me down! You're making me lo--"  
  
It was the change in his expression that made her stop. He was looking at something behind her. As she lost his attention, so too did she lose her sudden anger, and she released him to whirl and see what had caused his face to smooth out like that, like still water.  
  
"Oh--Commander!" She straightened up. Shinji didn't-exactly the opposite, rather; he looked like someone had let the air out of him. He cast his eyes downward.  
  
"How's it going?" he asked.  
  
"Just fine, sir, just fine! We're going to beat that angel!" she said loudly, as if trying to convince more than him. She grinned hard at him, willing him to believe. A winning smile was worth rubies.  
  
"I see." He walked past, and she allowed her winning smile to slip. It wasn't like she wasn't trying. He didn't seem to like anyone but Ayanami, and what for? What made her so special?  
  
Her thoughts were interrupted by Shinji's voice. "Father!" It came out shaky, like a request.  
  
The man turned, his face as unreadable as Ayanami's. As empty.  
  
"We're about to have lunch," Shinji said. "If you...we could..."  
  
Only Asuka, her eyes on the floor, noticed the tremors that shook his legs, fine and nearly invisible.  
  
"Sorry...I have work to do." The man walked away and did not look back.  
  
With a life like hers, Asuka was no stranger to defeat. She was not ready to give in to it and so she beat it back, bluffed it away with bravado and kept it at bay with myriad accomplishments, none of which satisfied her. At any rate, she knew it when she saw it. If there were a dragon living by your house, you'd be sure to know its ways so you could avoid it.  
  
No, she was no stranger to defeat. She could see it crouching, grinning, in the depths of Shinji's eyes.  
  
*****  
  
That idiot. She couldn't believe how bad she was going to look because of him. They were practicing so much and she was trying so hard, but Misato just kept saying no, no. She wasn't sure how much more she could take.  
  
There was an icy chill in her midsection that just wouldn't leave, even as she straitjacketed her arms around herself while Misato lectured. She couldn't CONCENTRATE with the First standing over there like that! Staring! Those red eyes! The girl didn't look quite CANNY.  
  
(Of course,) her mind supplied cruelly. (That's what they used to say about you. Isn't it?)  
  
She shook that thought away, flicking her eyes over the First for some evidence of who she was, what she was, where she'd come from. She gave none; she was as good an actress as Asuka herself.  
  
"Rei," Misato said, as if struck by a thought.  
  
The First Child answered Misato, but her eyes were on Asuka. "Yes."  
  
Breeding. Gott, you had to have breeding to be able to make someone feel like shit with one word.  
  
"Could you take Asuka's place for a second?"  
  
Asuka had no time to mask the surprise on her face. Ayanami, by contrast, looked completely unruffled, and Asuka hated her more for it as she stood to one side and watched the First gracefully assume her place beside Shinji, who was looking suddenly uncomfortable.  
  
Kaji started the music again, and as they danced, Asuka saw something change in Shinji, saw the tension leave him. He became something shining and fine, not at all like the clumsy oaf she'd just been ridiculing.  
  
Rei was like ice that could breathe. She took no notice of anyone else in the room, simply danced as she was told, never missing a beat.  
  
Perfect.  
  
Asuka released the breath she hadn't known she was holding. She unclenched her fists and watched the crescent-shaped dents in her palms fill up with blood.  
  
Misato slid a glance to Asuka. "If Unit-00 wasn't being repaired, we'd pair Shinji with Rei without a second thought."  
  
Flashpoint. There was only so much one person could stand.  
  
"Why don't you just send her in my Unit-02 then?" Her voice seemed unnaturally loud in the small studio, a growl, a shout, something that left a hiss as it went.  
  
Realizing everyone was staring at her, she lost the last shreds of her shields. Something in her broke. In a normal girl it would have liquefied and rushed out of her in tears, but instead she simply stood and shook, the tremors barely visible in her form.  
  
"They" were shapeless to her now, something warped and ugly to her eyes. Anger and tears barely leashed blinded her as she choked "Excuse me!" and spun to leave. Misato cursed. Kaji said something to Shinji, who made some sound; Rei was simply a snowy ghost.  
  
The hallway opened dark quiet arms to her, her dance flats slipping on the polished floors.  
  
*****  
  
They didn't understand. None of them. They would never understand.  
  
She had her knees drawn up tight to her chest, her arms around them, effectively straitjacketing herself. She hated herself. Brushing a stray sneaky tear from around her nose, she pressed her nails deeper into the ragged crescents in her palms. They'd insulted and hurt her in there and all she'd managed to do was cry. She had no right to rag on Shinji, not really. She was pathetic. She was a wimp.  
  
"Soryu..."  
  
She didn't turn to face him. He'd probably come to press the edge a little more, but she didn't have to watch it. She could leave, but what for? A little more.  
  
"What do you want?" She hurled the words at him like stones. "Why did you follow me?"  
  
Under ordinary circumstances, that would have been enough to make him go away--Shinji's backbone could be likened to a drinking straw. An impressive enough show of bravado would usually be enough to make him back down. This time, however, he continued doggedly: "I'm...I'm sorry..."  
  
"I'M doing it perfectly. YOU'RE the one who's messing up."  
  
She expected him to make excuses, to apologize again maybe, to tell her she wasn't as good as she thought. Something like that. She was totally unprepared for what he did say.  
  
"Soryu? Do you ever get...tired?"  
  
"Tired? Tired of what?" This was thin ice. There was some trap here. She could feel it.  
  
"Putting on your show for Misato and Kaji. You know, pretending to be such a goody-goody. You don't--"  
  
This was like throwing gasoline to douse the fire. "Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" It was all she could do not to clamp her hands over her ears and scream it at him.  
  
Deep in her secret put-away heart she knew he couldn't possibly know. He couldn't know about the hospital or the doll or the way her eyes bruised from lack of sleep when the dreams just got too bad. He couldn't understand that she'd only been here a week and was already beating her BRAINS out trying to be good enough for them, all of them.  
  
"Just shut up," she said, almost a whisper, the anger leaving her weak as water. "Don't fool yourself into thinking you can give me advice--don't degrade my feelings by pretending that you 'understand'. Because you don't. You can't." She returned to her huddled position, indicating that the discussion was closed.  
  
He left her as silently as he'd come. She did not call him back.  
  
*****  
  
When the door slid back to reveal her, he had the look of a deer right before it runs away.  
  
She smiled at him. A winning smile was worth triple-A bonds, but winning or not, smiling was just another way to bare fangs. "You think you can just SAY things to me?"  
  
His eyes went wide as she jumped to attack, not him but the camera above them. It exploded in a small violent cloud of fire, and she landed, veins still singing with flight.  
  
"We're going to show Misato and the First, understand?" she asked, a little breathless, arms akimbo.  
  
He almost looked a little scared. She smiled again, softer now. Without the loving, obsessed eye of the camera on them, it was almost safe to smile, safe to show her true face. Here she was queen and keeper now, and his attention belonged to her alone.  
  
"Good. Let's start."  
  
*****  
  
"No, no, NO!" she cried. "I said raise your leg higher, and you're behind half a beat, and--"  
  
"All right! All right already!" Shinji dropped his arms to his sides, stepping gracefully down from formation like a true angel to earth. "Will you just stop badgering me already? I'm doing the best I can."  
  
"All right isn't GOOD enough! Our BEST isn't even good enough. Don't you see?" She locked eyes on him, willing him to get it.  
  
He was staring not at her, but at something beyond her or inside her, trying to comprehend it. When he decided he liked what he saw, a change rippled over him, and she took in a breath at the sight of it.  
  
Understanding wrapped around his shoulders like an old comfortable blanket, and she saw that in this boy, in this skinny, unloved boy with haunted eyes and sweat glistening on his skin, slept a lion, slept a true angel.  
  
"Let's do this." He stepped into ready position, waiting for her to join him, waiting for the music to start.  
  
She smiled--no, truth be told, she grinned at him. "Well, it's about time you sounded like you WANTED to do this."  
  
*****  
  
There wasn't a world outside the room. Was there?  
  
Was there a language outside that of the dance? She wasn't sure. No, there was no one, no on but her and Shinji. They had been dancing together all their lives. There was nothing but the dance, nothing but the two of them, just Shinji and Asu--  
  
There was a thud as Shinji's shoulder struck the wall. He was panting, resting, sweat beading on his skin, discouragement painting his face. For some reason, he had never looked more beautiful to her.  
  
Her tired, burning eyes met his. They might have said it together. "One more time."  
  
It was in the spin when it happened. He kept hands light as cat's paws on her and let her twirl as far as she could away, but he was confident that she would return to his arms, and she was confident there would be arms to return to.  
  
The realization hit her unexpectedly, threw her off a step. She felt the beat of one heart as she crashed back into his embrace, the warm walls of it.  
  
Was--that--it? Was THAT it?  
  
He felt it too; then they made up the missed beat and were already side by side, into the next step.  
  
Perfect.  
  
She slid a smile to him, and he was already returning it.  
  
*****  
  
The first thing she saw was a calendar bloodied with red x's, then the colors swam in streamers down her line of vision. She was hauled to her feet. Instead of the melody she was used to hearing, shouting filled her ears. She realized the shouting was Misato having a fit as Shinji murmured something almost musical from a place between sleep and waking.  
  
She blinked while going through the motions, and suddenly they were just there, out on the field.   
  
It was like a dream. It was like practicing a role in a play--by the time opening night arrived, you simply WERE the role. You no longer concentrated.  
  
It was scary. Scary to trust someone so implicitly, to simply move to a place and know that Shinji would BE there. But of course Shinji would be there. He would always be there...  
  
The world suddenly came crashing down around her ears. Her vision spun, shook. Somewhere she heard Misato shrieking in untrammeled jubilation--  
  
"We did it! We did it!"  
  
--but it quickly reverted to harsh words aimed at Kaji. Some things didn't change.  
  
We did it, Shinji, she said, or tried to say, but fatigue flooded her mouth, silencing her.   
  
In order to force the exhaustion from her throat, she would need to yell.  
  
"YOU blew the landing."  
  
He chuckled, and it was a lovely sound, something rare and precious to keep in a jar with holes in its lid. "I'm sorry, Asuka. We sort of fell asleep before we could practice that part."  
  
The memory flashed behind her eyes for a second, where there was no optic nerve--falling asleep on the floor from sheer exhaustion, arms pillowing her head, hair licking at Shinji's open hands like flame. "Can't you even LAND without me coaching you?" she snarled, hoping the anger would mask her sudden blush.  
  
He laughed softly again. "I'm SORRY, Asuka!"  
  
She understood. Victory had made them giddy. She could taste both the win and him in her mouth like two strong wines one after the other. "You are hopeless, Shinji Ikari," she said, but the edges were as soft as sea glass. "But you DID do pretty well...for a total klutz."  
  
"Oooh!" he teased. "High honor from you!"  
  
She laughed a little too, but the giddiness was ebbing away, leaving her muscles weak as water. She could tell, because she knew him, all of him, that he felt it too.  
  
"You're hopeless, baka," she yawned, but he trusted her enough to have gone ahead of her into slumber. She did not leave him there alone very long.   
  
*****  
  
My third Eva, complete. PLEASE review. I need to know if I am doing this right.   
  
It took me forever to finish this. Asuka and I are way too much alike, in all respects possible, so we argued a lot and ate chocolate and I cried a bit and she pointed to my sleep-swollen eyes and laughed. Finally I did my Asuka hair, and she petted Perot while I put in a homemade mix CD and we got this down. This story is perhaps one of my favorites out of all the stories; it holds my heart in its teeth and runs, and I run with it.  
  
Please review; please be constructive, just say something. Danke.   



End file.
